Day 2

There are many burning questions in life.
Is there a unified theory in quantum mechanics? Can the space-time continuum be warped to a singularity? If reincarnation exists why does Michael Jackson keep coming back as the same thing?
These questions and others have been discussed by the greatest thinkers of our time but perhaps the most important of all has been overlooked:
Why the hell did I choose poker as a hobby?
I can answer just one of these with a high degree of confidence, and it’s not the one relating to a small plastic surgery enthusiast with an unhealthy interest towards children.

With the house to myself I was able to enjoy a leisurely self-indulgent lunch consisting of three cans of beer and a box of Jaffa cakes as the day’s first poker tournament started.
Once more I managed to steer clear of the all-in lunatics for the first few rounds and steadily increased my stack to almost 3000. I was feeling quite good until a new player arrived at the table and started using the chat facility.
Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy banter at the tables, its part of the game that sets it aside from other pastimes. I’ve made more friends playing poker than anything else I’ve ever done. It breaks down social barriers and unites people with a shared passion.
I even set up a game in the hotel bar when I was on my honeymoon and such was the genial camaraderie around the table that Mrs. Snowman didn’t object…although she was a little upset a couple of hours later when I got drunk and was sick in the pool.
However, there is a cloud attached to this silver lining and it comes in the shape of a lower life form known as a “pita” (Pain In The Arse).
Pitas can be found the World over, usually explaining in very loud voices to anyone within ear shot what amazing poker players they are. Their diatribe invariably includes a detailed explanation of how badly everyone else is playing their own cards shortly before they’re knocked out after doing something stupid and then blaming another player for their mistake.

This particular Pita came storming in and immediately told a player he was a donkey for folding pocket Queens against pocket Aces with an Ace on the board
“I would have won that by bluffing” was the comment.
I thought it was a brilliant fold.
Needless to say the Pita soon went down faster than Paris Hilton in a nudist camp but not before sticking a fork in the eye of my enjoyment.

I won’t dwell on the game as I also made a couple of elementary unforced errors by not calling a small re-raise on an open ended flush draw and seeing my chip stack reduced to virtually nothing.
It wasn’t long before elimination stared me in the face and I returned to my other more successful hobby of drinking beer.
By the time Mrs. Snowman returned from work I had been especially triumphant in this secondary pastime which was confirmed when she threatened to feed me one of the beer cans as an appetizer before dinner.
Sideways.

Tomorrow sees the regular Friday night game that I organize at my local club so I will miss two of the freerolls but I will report back on the drunken bums who have the unfortunate distinction of being my friends.
I would, however, like to apologize in advance to the bar staff. I expect to knock my first drink over the table somewhere around midnight and jam the cigarette vending machine about ten minutes later.
We’ll see.
So, with an evening out to look forward to I felt sufficiently chilled out to answer my original question as to why I chose poker as a hobby:
It’s slightly less painful than nude alligator wrestling.